Circular Saw - A Neat Trick

[crokett]

I've been using a circular saw going on 25 years and this trick never occurred to me. I was cutting down sheets of ply for the bench project and wrestling with the kerf binding. My brother stopped over while I was working and suggested I set the cut depth to just over the thickness of the ply. That way I can make the cut over the sawhorses and not be trying to support a 30"x80" offcut as I am cutting.

[niki]

Hi David

Yes, it is a neat trick but the owners of Festool or EZ cutting tables (I think that they call them MFT that stands for...I don't know), know and use this setting otherwise they would cut the table each time...

My problem is that, my circular saw is not stable when it's "partially down" (I mean the saw can bent to left or right when I apply pressure on the handle) so, I must use it in the "full down" position and suffer quietly

niki

[crokett]

Niki, if you make a wider plywood plate and attach to the existing sole on your saw this might work. A contractor friend of my dad's has a dedicated saw for ply. He attached a plate to his saw that makes the offset the same on both sides of the blade and is longer for following straight edges.

[DonHo]

I've got 4 cheap 2X4 studs I bought at lowes that I keep around to place on my sawhorses when cutting up sheets of ply. I've had them for 3 or 4 years and they've got kerfs on both sides but by keeping the blade set to only a 1/4" or so more than the thickness of the ply they'll be good for a few more years. An even better idea ( but one I"m too lazy to do ) is to cut a 4X8 sheet of ply into 8" wide strips and then cut a couple of them in half. Cut 4" half laps in the width so you can slip them together to make a support grid on your sawhorses. With the grid pieces being 8" you never have to worry about cutting thru them. But it's still a good idea to limit the blade depth to a 1/4" more than the thicknes of the sheets you're cutting. You can see a picture (not a good picture but you'll get the idea) here
http://woodstore.net/cutplatsheet.html

DonHo

[niki]

Hi David

I did not explain myself good.

To lift the saw up, I have to release the wing nut at the back of the saw as you can see on the first picture.

After I lift it and lock the wing nut, the back side of the saw is supported on a thin slotted strip and that strip allows the back side to move left/right if I apply left/right pressure on the handle.

On the other pictures, you can see how I do it with "support strips" under the plate

Regards
niki